acemom

Garden update:
Weeds are flourishing.
Tomatoes are delicious, beefsteak tomatoes and Brandywines.
Zucchinis are not producing as much as I expected, don't know why.
Peppers (all varieties) are going crazy.
Squirrels are eating the sweet corn.
Melons have set fruit, we will see.

Next year I might just plant tomatoes and a few peppers, maybe some zucchinis.
The rest of it wasn't worth the effort.

gwp

Tomatoes are being harvested as they ripen, probably 3 dozen so far and another 4 or 5 dozen on the vine.
Corn will be ready this coming weekend.
Cukes have done great, and I put up a dozen pints and a half dozen quarts of dill relish this year.
Peppers are doing OK. Not too many Bell peppers, but the chilis are going shiznat. Only one chili has gone red so far.
Watermelons did nothing. Again. I can take a hint.
Pumpkins have invaded and decided to take over. I will have a bumper crop this year if the few I can see are any indication.
Acorn and butternut squash plants look healthy, but it's too early to harvest those, so I don't know what I have yet amongst all the huge leaves.

I kept the weeds at bay this year with RoundUp. Worked a lot better than trying to keep them down with mulch (which was a complete and utter failure the past two years) If this had been like those years, I was prepared to give up and pave the garden.

pooflady

gwp wrote:Tomatoes are being harvested as they ripen, probably 3 dozen so far and another 4 or 5 dozen on the vine.
Corn will be ready this coming weekend.
Cukes have done great, and I put up a dozen pints and a half dozen quarts of dill relish this year.
Peppers are doing OK. Not too many Bell peppers, but the chilis are going shiznat. Only one chili has gone red so far.
Watermelons did nothing. Again. I can take a hint.
Pumpkins have invaded and decided to take over. I will have a bumper crop this year if the few I can see are any indication.
Acorn and butternut squash plants look healthy, but it's too early to harvest those, so I don't know what I have yet amongst all the huge leaves.

I kept the weeds at bay this year with RoundUp. Worked a lot better than trying to keep them down with mulch (which was a complete and utter failure the past two years) If this had been like those years, I was prepared to give up and pave the garden.

Congratulations, sounds like you're having a bumper crop this year. Husband only planted tomatoes and they're fantastic this year. Perfectly round, big, no blemishes, juicy, great taste. No blossom rot and no tomato worms. I think this has been our best year. Canned 14 quarts, but have been giving a lot away to family and friends.

gwp

This year's success story was habanero's, jalapeno's and bell peppers.

I made three big batches of hot sauce and bottled it -- a habanero vinegar sauce, a habanero-jalapeno sauce with garlic, onion and carrot (big hit, very hot but not fatal), and a habanero-jalapeno-pumpkin hot sauce with garlic and onion. Just finished that batch and distributed a couple of jars, and am waiting for feedback.

The watermelons produced only three small fruits, two of which were mostly rind.

The tomatoes did really well this year, and besides being used all season for sauce and soups and salads, gallons and gallons got canned or frozen. (I discovered the skinning and crushing to freeze in plastic freezer bag method after a couple of rounds of canning. Much easier )

Corn did well this year too. Squash produced nothing at all. Nada. Maybe the few remaining bees in the world are getting picky about what they want to pollinate...

Cukes were so-so. Produced enough of them, but since I already have enough pickles and relish to last for years, I didn't do anything special with them this year. Many were given away to appreciative neighbors.

pooflady

I made three big batches of hot sauce and bottled it -- a habanero vinegar sauce, a habanero-jalapeno sauce with garlic, onion and carrot (big hit, very hot but not fatal), and a habanero-jalapeno-pumpkin hot sauce with garlic and onion. Just finished that batch and distributed a couple of jars, and am waiting for feedback.

The watermelons produced only three small fruits, two of which were mostly rind.

The tomatoes did really well this year, and besides being used all season for sauce and soups and salads, gallons and gallons got canned or frozen. (I discovered the skinning and crushing to freeze in plastic freezer bag method after a couple of rounds of canning. Much easier )

Corn did well this year too. Squash produced nothing at all. Nada. Maybe the few remaining bees in the world are getting picky about what they want to pollinate...

Cukes were so-so. Produced enough of them, but since I already have enough pickles and relish to last for years, I didn't do anything special with them this year. Many were given away to appreciative neighbors.

Sounds like mostly a successful year. The mostly rind watermelons would be the best for watermelon pickles. Love em.

dontwantaname

I haven't planted anything since we got Rusty, but the neighbor had the best crop of figs since we have been living here.
Every time they went away to their house in PA, I picked the ones on my side of the fence.
They usually picked all the ripe ones before they would leave, but I got quite a few.

Yes, I rob produce that is within arms reach of my yard.

They didn't get enough of anything else to pilfer.

WE LURV YOU TOO! Dork!!!
No greater love is lost than that not shared.

gwp

This year's garden included several different varieties of tomatoes and sweet peppers, jalapenos, hot cherry peppers and as an experiment, one bhut jalokia (ghost chili) plant. Also planted cukes, two varieties of corn, watermelon and acorn and butternut squash.

Went to North Carolina for two weeks and came home to weeds 2-3 feet tall across the entire garden. It looks like some sort of grass, but HUGE.

All plants are stunted, but I was able to get the weeds cut back around the peppers and tomatoes, so we'll see if they produce anything worth mentioning (Picked two very small tomatoes so far)

Slim pickin's. I think the garden will lie dormant next year and stay covered in black plastic to try to kill off all the weeds.

pooflady

gwp wrote:This year's garden included several different varieties of tomatoes and sweet peppers, jalapenos, hot cherry peppers and as an experiment, one bhut jalokia (ghost chili) plant. Also planted cukes, two varieties of corn, watermelon and acorn and butternut squash.

Went to North Carolina for two weeks and came home to weeds 2-3 feet tall across the entire garden. It looks like some sort of grass, but HUGE.

All plants are stunted, but I was able to get the weeds cut back around the peppers and tomatoes, so we'll see if they produce anything worth mentioning (Picked two very small tomatoes so far)

Slim pickin's. I think the garden will lie dormant next year and stay covered in black plastic to try to kill off all the weeds.

That's too bad. We started getting tomatoes last week and they're coming on like gangbusters. That's all husband plants now.

dontwantaname

I only had blackberries and strawberries. Both were bitter.
The strawberries were new.
The blackberries were mad that I cut them way back last year.
(weed, they are a weed. You put in one plant and they take over. Weed with thorns.)

WE LURV YOU TOO! Dork!!!
No greater love is lost than that not shared.

ArtWorksMetal

gwp wrote:Went to North Carolina for two weeks and came home to weeds 2-3 feet tall across the entire garden. It looks like some sort of grass, but HUGE.

Does your huge grass have a reddish tint on some of the leaves? Does it look a little like corn when it's young? Then you have Johnsongrass - the scourge of the planet.
Plastic will not kill it. Glyphosphate (Roundup)will, especially when young. Sethoxydim (Vantage) also works well, and doesn't kill everything else.
Johnsongrass puts out long rhizomes deep under the soil. It will spread everywhere, including your neighbors'. Tilling it up is a no-no. The cut up rhizomes just become thousands of individual plants.
If you keep spraying it while young and fight it religiously, you can get control. Wait, and you'll have the equivalent of a bamboo patch.
I've been fighting a 1 acre infestation for 3 years. There are only Pyrrhic victories...

cptgone

ArtWorksMetal

BTW, I'm a big fan of Preen. It helps. Cucurbits do not do well around it, though, until they're well established.
I have over 2,000 sq ft of flower gardens, and the Preen really helps there.
That and hiring a kid to pull weeds regularly.

pooflady

GWP, did you plant tomatoes this year? Our plants look great but we're not getting a lot of tomatoes. Several friends havn't got any yet. Too hot, I guess. Doesn't look like I'll have enough to can this year.

gwp

pooflady wrote:GWP, did you plant tomatoes this year? Our plants look great but we're not getting a lot of tomatoes. Several friends havn't got any yet. Too hot, I guess. Doesn't look like I'll have enough to can this year.

No, I didn't plant anything at all this year. Good thing too. We were in a drought for most of the summer, and it was the hottest on record to boot.

Neighbors planted container tomatoes and apparently had some luck. They dropped off a small bag with us. They all seemed to be well formed, but very small.

dontwantaname

Not ripe yet. I have a few hundred on my side of the fence this year. No way the husband can pick them all.
Usually he picked all the ripe ones before they go to their vacation house every week.
He would move. She won't. All the grand kids are here.

WE LURV YOU TOO! Dork!!!
No greater love is lost than that not shared.

superspryte

pooflady wrote:GWP, did you plant tomatoes this year? Our plants look great but we're not getting a lot of tomatoes. Several friends havn't got any yet. Too hot, I guess. Doesn't look like I'll have enough to can this year.

Our tomatoes are doing great. And our soil is clay too. But now it's raining too much and everything is drowning.

superspryte

pooflady wrote:We have what they call "impervious clay," but husband's worked this section for so many years, it's much better.

Something else that's weird this year, husband has a gazillion cactus plants and there hasn't been one flower.

I don't think our clay is that bad, to be honest. We have a vermicomposter (that's fancy-speak for a worm composter) that we put our non-meat scraps into so we get worm castings (poo) to improve the soil. Mixed with our bunny poo, it gets good yields.

That's weird about the cacti...although I've NEVER had one flower...usually kill those.

gwp

I believe I have reached a pivotal point and will be dismantling the enclosure around my garden plot and will return it to the lawn from whence it came, 35 years ago.

This year, despite holding the weeds at bay, none of the pepper plants produced any fruit except the Jalapenos, and they yielded about a dozen small peppers between 2 plants. None of the other 12 plants gave squat. Watermelon had no fruit, squash is barren. The tomatoes all produced however, as did the corn. It's just not worth the hassle anymore. If the bees can't be bothered to pollinate, I'm not inclined to care either.

pooflady

gwp wrote:I believe I have reached a pivotal point and will be dismantling the enclosure around my garden plot and will return it to the lawn from whence it came, 35 years ago.

This year, despite holding the weeds at bay, none of the pepper plants produced any fruit except the Jalapenos, and they yielded about a dozen small peppers between 2 plants. None of the other 12 plants gave squat. Watermelon had no fruit, squash is barren. The tomatoes all produced however, as did the corn. It's just not worth the hassle anymore. If the bees can't be bothered to pollinate, I'm not inclined to care either.

Bah!

So tomatoes and corn aren't enough? Our tomatoes are just about done and I didn't get nearly enough of them, even though I probably ate them every day. We didn't get any until nearly August.

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